Over the last year or so I've noticed that Amazon's despatch times are getting slower and slower UNLESS you opt for'Prime'. There is also now a'progress bar' which doesn't ever seem to relate to anything in the real world and seems to be there as some sort of placebo - surely this is just an automatic function because unless a parcel is being tracked, nothing can be known about when a package will arrive. The periods during which parcels are predicted to arrive also seem to be increasing.
There is also a display which purports to show when orders have been accepted or are being prepared or have been despatched or are'in transit' or have arrived. This display is regularly wrong. In my order history there are loads of orders STILL listed as being'in transit' which arrived ages ago. All-in-all, the decline in reliability of both displays and despatch times appears to have a direct correlation to the ways in which Amazon tries to'encourage' buyers to subscribe to Prime.
(The Amazon forum is full of complaints about that as well!). One order I just placed and for which I upgraded to their next day service STILL hasn't been despatch 2 days later. Up to about a year ago, I had great faith in Amazon. Now I don't, and whenever I can I buy from affiliate sellers or Ebay.
